Course Catalog

Health and International Human Rights Seminar (3)

This course focuses on the dynamic relationship between health and international human rights law. The course begins with an overview of the historical and legal origins of the field of health and human rights, including the atrocities of Nazi human experimentation, the Nuremberg Code, and the evolution of health and human rights law in the United Nations system. The course moves on to critically examine the meaning and significance of the right to health in international law as well as the contemporary relationship between health and human rights, including the impact of health policies and programs on human rights and the health impacts resulting from human rights violations. We will consider the strengths and limitations of the human rights framework by introducing a number of case studies and issues, focusing on vulnerable populations (women, children, persons with HIV/AIDS) and specific population health threats and issues (the right to healthcare, access to life-sustaining pharmaceuticals, female genital mutilation and reproductive and sexual rights, human trafficking, the ethical conduct of biomedical research in developing countries). A paper written for this seminar may be used to satisfy the Advanced Writing Requirement.